One day in 1965, Yohei Sasakawa-then a young boy-was taken by his father to a leprosy treatment center in South Korea. It was journey that was to change his life. He saw how the patients were exiled by their own families. "The only thing I could see from their faces was despair and their faces were all frozen," said Sasakawa. "I was very shocked because I myself was living a healthy life. I was not at all aware such a world existed," he told Tempo.